And with the years the locks turned gray and spread from tree to tree.

Describing Southern Cities:

PERHAPS IT WAS THE MASSIVE oaks draped with Spanish moss, or the gracious wrought-iron-accented buildings, or the cobblestone walkways along the riverfront, but my first and lasting impression of Savannah was a sense of deja vu, like a vague distant memory evoked by some provocative fragrance. — Alice Ross, Gobelle website.

I was a typical farm boy. I liked the farm. I enjoyed the things that you do on a farm, go down to the drainage ditch and fish, and look at the crawfish and pick a little cotton. Sam Donaldson, Reporter and News Anchor from Texas

About fifteen miles above New Orleans the river goes very slowly. It has broadened out there until it is almost a sea and the water is yellow with the mud of half a continent. Where the sun strikes it, it is golden. Frank Yerby, Author

Growing up Southern is a privilege, really. It’s more than where you’re born, it’s an idea and state of mind that seems imparted at birth. It’s more than loving fried chicken, sweet tea, football, and country music…it’s being hospitable, devoted to front porches, magnolias, moon pies and coca-cola… and each other. We don’t become Southern – we’re born that way

“True grits, more grits, fish, grits, and collards. Life is good where grits are swallered.”–Roy Blount, Jr

“All I can say is that there’s a sweetness here, a Southern sweetness, that makes sweet music. If I had to tell somebody who had never been to the South, who had never heard of soul music, what it was, I’d just have to tell him that it’s music from the heart, from the pulse, from the innermost feeling. That’s my soul; that’s how I sing. And that’s the South.” — Al Green

“When I go to the Gate, I’ll play a duet with Gabriel. Yeah, we’ll play ‘Sleepy Time Down South’ and ‘Hello, Dolly!.’ Then he can blow a couple that he’s been playing up there all the time”– Louis Armstrong, on his 70th birthday

Southern weather forecast: tolerable, hot, really hot, and scorching.

“Tough girls come from New York. Sweet girls, they’re from Georgia. But us Kentucky girls, we have fire and ice in our blood. We can ride horses, be a debutante, throw left hooks, and drink with the boys, all the while making sweet tea, darlin’. And if we have an opinion, you know you’re gonna hear it.” ~~Ashley Judd, Actress

It’s so hot in the South, the cows are giving evaporated milk.

“A Georgia peach, a real Georgia peach, a backyard great-grandmother’s
orchard peach, is as thickly furred as a sweater, and so fluent and sweet that
once you bite through the flannel, it brings tears to your
eyes.”
-Melissa Fay Greene, ‘Praying for Sheetrock’

A Southern farmer discovers the local kids have been feasting on his watermelons in the patch. He posts a sign saying, “Warning! One of these melons contains cyanide.” A week later the farmer returns to check on his melon patch to find another sign that says: “Now there are two!”.

Well it’s way, way down where the cain grows tall. Down where they say, “Y’all”

Walk on in with that Southern drawl. ‘Cause that’s what I like about the South.

She’s got backbone and turnip greens. Ham hocks and butter beans

You, me and New Orleans. An’ that’s what I like about the South~~Bob Wills

“She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the
Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches.” ~~Sara Addison Allen

It is so hot in the South tonight, the mosquitoes are carrying canteens.

There’s a Southern accent, where I come from

The young’uns call it country

The Yankees call it dumb

I got my own way of talkin

But everything is done, with a Southern accent

Where I come from ~~Tom Petty

“The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not
to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world’s
luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the
earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat.”, Mark Twain

“Red beans and ricely yours.”

Louis Armstrong loved red beans and rice so much he signed his personal letters thus

Well, I was raised up

Beneath the shade of a Georgia pine

And that’s home you know

Sweet tea, pecan pie and homemade wine

Where the peaches grow ~~Zac Brown, Chicken Fried Lyrics

Yeah, I like my rice and gray and my black-eyed peas.
Corn on the cob, I want a big glass of tea
Some okra and tomatoes and some turnip greens
I want some real soul food, Do you know what I mean? ~~Kenny Bill Stinson

Jesus is my friend, America is my home

Sweet iced tea and Jerry Lee, Daytona Beach. That’s what gets to me

I can feel it in my bones

Smooth as the hickory wind, that blows from Memphis down to Appalachicola

Are you from Dixie, I said from Dixie, where the fields of cotton beckon to me

Hello, how do you feel, I’m glad to see you. Here’s the friends I waited to see

If you’re from Alabama, Tennessee or Caroline. Anyplace below that Mason Dixon line

Then you’re from Dixie, hurray for Dixie, cause I’m from Dixie too.~~Lyrics from song, Are You From Dixie

Born and bred on Southern ground. No place I’d rather be found.

But down in Dixieland, with my feet in the sand

Drinking sweet iced tea under a magnolia tree. No place I’d rather be

No matter where I roam, I’ll always come back home

Cause Dixie is a part of me. My Dixieland. ~~J. Yeager

Johnnie! Susie! Come to supper! The music of iron skillets, the flitting of lighting bugs, are in that antique invocation. Supper, in the South, was the light meal: cereal or sandwiches, sometimes bacon and eggs. No culinary folderol, anyway. All of that belonged to the midday repast known as dinner, when the whole family turned up, from office or school, to feast in solidarity on meatloaf and turnip greens.~~by William Murchison, The Dallas Morning News Columnist 3/13/96

In the South, we “sip” sweet tea, mimosas, and mint juleps while “swayin” in the porch swing or “rockin” on the veranda. These things are all guaranteed stress relievers! ~~J.Yeager

Rules of Southern Cookin: 1.Cook everything ’til well done & then some. 2. Fry when possible. 3. Don’t measure. Southern cookin is done by taste, not by book. 4. Cook in iron pots & skillets. 5. Always have biscuits or some form of soppin’ bread every meal. 6. Always cook large quantities in case company stops by. 7. Don’t toss out grease. Keep a can on the stove for all drippins. 8. Don’t waste anything. 9. The more you grow, catch or shoot, the better it will taste. 10.Always bless the food.